Monday, February 22, 2016

Have you heard that there may be a move afoot to ban
large-denomination bills, like the C-note? I hadn't until I ran across
a story
in the New York Sun, which explains that this -- like lots of
other bad ideas -- is being suggested as an anti-terrorism
measure:

[Lawrence] Summers wrote up his idea in
the Washington Post, touting a proposal from a think tank he
directs. It wants the Europeans to stop issuing new 500-euro notes and
America its hundreds -- and maybe even withdraw such notes already in
circulation.

This, Mr. Summers suggests, is justified
because these denominations -- and Portraits of Grant (meaning 50s) --
are being used by criminals and terrorists. In "certain circles,"
Mr. Summers says, the 500-euro marker is known as the "bin
Laden."

That strikes me as an unconvincing argument,
particularly from the Democrats. They have withdrawn from nigh every
front in the war on Islamic terror. They don't want to name our
enemies or even call our struggle a war. [format
edits]

The Sun's Seth Lipsky chides the Democrats
for being "out of ideas," but he doesn't go far enough, as his own
analysis suggests:

It's the financial equivalent of gun
control. When criminals use guns the Democrats want to take guns from
law-abiding citizens. When terrorists use hundreds, the liberals
[sic] want to deny the rest of us the
Benjamins.

Whether an individual supporter of such
measures is crippled by precautionary
thinking or has more
sinister motives, the result is the same: individual rights get
trampled in the name of protecting individuals. Lipsky goes on to
allege that this proposal is part of a broader movement to get rid of
cash, which makes sense, considering such motivations. This is
disturbing, if true, but would really only complete what FDR -- who
one might think founded our country, to
hear Bernie Sanders speak -- started when he took
the dollar off the gold standard.

For the same reasons
Lipsky cites as he speculates about this idea -- that such a move
would further enable the government to meddle with the affairs of
individuals -- we should work to extricate
the government from money and the banking system altogether. Not
only should we resist such a move, we also need to turn the tide on
the government's whole de facto war on money.